


The Last Game of Hide and Seek

by ishouldwritethatdown



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Hide and Seek, Post-Dishonored (Video Game), Samuel too but only briefly, Selectively Mute Corvo Attano, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 16:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17707523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishouldwritethatdown/pseuds/ishouldwritethatdown
Summary: Emily is a quick study, when she wants to be. Training out at the Old Waterfront east of Drapers Ward seems to Corvo to be her most attentive "studying," and she's always sad to see it end. So much so, she sometimes tries to avoid going home.





	The Last Game of Hide and Seek

The sun was slipping further down the river – already most of the yard was thrown into shadow, and it gave the whole place a sinister tint.

The Old Waterfront got its name not from any change in its relation to the Wrenhaven, but the fact that the whole district was deserted. People had slowly started filling out Drapers Ward again – the reopening officiated by the young Empress, of course – but this part of town was still ghostly. Maybe soon the textile factories would reopen, but for now, this place was a perfect training ground.

Samuel would be by to pick them up and take them back to Dunwall Tower shortly. Corvo wasn’t sure that this had been what he had in mind when he offered to take them out on the river from time to time, but they’d made a routine of it, and the old boatman had never complained.

When he turned to remind Emily to leave her crossbow in the chest and lock it, he realised that she’d disappeared. She had been standing there a few moments ago, aiming bolts at bottles across the yard, but there wasn’t a sign of her.

He had to be impressed by her lightfootedness.

Corvo whistled, and it bounced around the empty buildings a little. When there was no response, he called her name instead. Again, she didn’t answer.

He felt a small clutch of panic that he tried to quell. She was always playing games or getting distracted. She was more capable of taking care of herself than the average thirteen-year-old aristocrat, and she had lungs strong enough to knock over a house of cards from five feet. If she had been in danger, she would yell.

But there was a creeping fear in the back of his mind, as there always was when she was quiet and out of sight, that something had happened and he hadn’t been there. He had to stop himself from deriding his choice of location – what if he’d misjudged how abandoned this district was, and she’d run into a gang of thugs? What if she’d slipped in the dark and fallen unconscious?

He fell back on the power of the Mark far too often for his liking, but the ability to detect people through walls was one that had served him especially well ever since he’d been visited by the Outsider.

He climbed up onto the rooftop, aided by a series of blinks, and scanned his surroundings.

The hiss of the Mark found Emily instantly, illuminating her curled-up shape where she hid in a foreman’s office in one of the abandoned mills.

He approached with silent feet and leaned over the desk she was crouched behind. She squealed when she saw him and then whined, “Corvooooo.”

She took the hand he offered her to get up and then crossed her arms and pouted. “No fair. How come you found me so fast? I hid super well this time.”

Corvo conceded with a raise of his shoulders and a nod that she had, indeed, hidden well. He tapped his fingers together to sign “ _Father_.”

“I know,” she sighed. “You’ll _always_ find me.”

She was trying to sound disappointed about losing her game, but if there was any genuine sadness in her demeanour, he couldn’t detect it. She hopped onto his back and clung to his shoulders while he took the shortcut down the side of the building, and she giggled in his ear. When they reached the bottom, Corvo could see Samuel pulling in to the Old Waterfront, and he gave them a wave.

“Corvo’s too good at playing hide and seek,” she announced to him as she climbed into the skiff. She added, happily, “I think I have to give up trying to beat him.”


End file.
